Does the name John Siscoe mean anything to you? If you're not Canadian, it probably won't, hell it might not even mean anything to you if you are Canadian, but it's a name that's been prominent in the news recently. There's any number of reasons why an individual might be in the news, but this individual sure as shit isn't there for any good deeds. John Siscoe is a man, who with his girlfriend, kept a man imprisoned in his closet for 3 months in Toronto in 2009 while making him suffer through physical, sexual, and extensive psychological abuse. Just in case this wasn't bad enough, Siscoe's girlfriend was none other than the wife of the man he held imprisoned. Their affair eventually reached a point where Siscoe moved in with the couple, and the husband was forced to sleep on the couch of his own marital home while this douche slept in his bed with his wife.

The case is currently being heard in court, so the details of what the victim endured are finally being heard. While imprisoned in the closet, he had cartilage ripped from his ears with pliers, needles were pierced through his lips to seal his mouth, razor blades had been taken to his body, he had been kicked with steel toed boots, bleeding wounds cauterized with hot knives, and he was even doused in lighter fluid and set on fire. The man's wife and Siscoe forced him to write out the "rules" of the house, such as "Do what it takes to not be stupid" on a regular basis and all he had in the closet with him was a pillow, a sheet, and a small loose patch of what appears to be carpet. Eventually, Siscoe became so confident in his power over the man, that he had a neighbour in the house and opened up the closet for his guest to see how much power he had over his victim. When the police were notified and searched the house, the found the man curled up in the corner of the closet. Upon being taken the hospital, it was discovered he had two collapsed lungs, several broken ribs, bruises and signs of prolonged abuse all over his body, and his head had swelled to three times its normal size.

Some of you might be wondering why the man didn't leave his relationship once his wife had Siscoe move in with them and he was delegated to the couch, or why he didn't tell Siscoe to get the hell out. There are multiple possibilities as to why things happened the way they did. It's possible that he did try to defend himself in the beginning, but Siscoe responded with physical abuse and beat the man into submission repeatedly. It's also possible that the man was in an abusive relationship with his wife from the beginning and felt he had no power to do anything, even as he witnessed things getting worse in front of him (yes, domestic abuse occurs against men too, regardless of what hardcore femi-nazis would have you believe).

Because of the nature of the abuse, the victim's identity is shielded from being publicized, but the flip side of this is that it also protects the name of his wife because knowing her name could be used to identify the victim. I wish more than anything that the woman's name could be published as well, because she's obviously just as fucked up as Siscoe is, but I would rather the victim remain unnamed, so I'll have to settle for trusting the justice system to not fuck this up like it did with Homolka and Bernardo (and yes, profilers and psychologists are already drawing parallels between these two cases).

However if it makes you feel even the slightest bit better, the victim has since moved to Vancouver and now has a girlfriend, so while it might take a long while to recover fully from this (if he ever does), he clearly hasn't lost all faith in women or humanity.